The Circus Orgasmist

Luis Molina Lora

Translated by: Trish Van Bolderen

Artwork by Anonymous

Simulating pleasure
is in some cases a matter of survival, in others, emotional suicide, and in the
most innocent of cases, nonsense. This rhetoric transcends what Andrea learned
in her late teens: that you have to keep guys happy, satisfied, quiet,fulfilled, andhypnotized by sex, which, when administeredwisely, could
reward you handsomely for all your hard work. Andrea’s reasons were sincere,
despite the circus act she staged each time a guy screwed her. She thought that
her sighs, her smooth-talk and her carefully coordinated convulsions would be
enough to ensure her partner’s satisfaction and to found, sustain and secure a
happy relationship. And she was right, in part. By spinning yarns and acting
out soap operas, she enduredten
years of marriage, sprouted two children, and successfully sidesteppedthe common course of taking a lover.

Andrea was happy, had a
successful husband, two healthy kids and a crap job that allowed her to pay for
some of her personal expenses, luxury items. The tiring daily routine of two
mischievous children, a demanding husband and pressure from a job that was as irritatingas it was trivial had driven Andrea to
discover another purpose for the very theatrics that had once helped her land a
husband: getting him out of her hair. Finishing the whole thing off with three
dramatic screams, leaving him to believe he was the best lover on the East Coast.
It worked every time.

No one doubtedthat Andrea’s home housed a successful
partnership. After all, they both had a job, they had two family cars, a house
of their own, two teenagers who were about to start university, and a stable
emotional life based on an intense, though shaky and one-sided, sexual dynamic.

When their youngest left home,
Andrea suddenly felt she had lost several years of her life. Finding herself
alone forced her to rethink her own happiness, starting with the pleasures she
hadn’t been able to give herself for so many years. Among them, switching
careers, finding a better job, having liposuction on her belly and buttocks,
and taking full advantage of theloving
communion between her and her husband. Without saying a word to him, Andrea set
out to remedy the mistakes that arise when the dominoes of circumstance outstrip
wisdom on the path of everyday decision-making.Going back to university wasn’t feasible; finding a new job right
away wouldn’t be so easy without another degree, even if it were just a
technical one; the liposuction was only a matter of picking a date since she’d
already saved up the money; and the issue of honest, face-to-face sex was only a
matter of time since now there were just her and the husband she had managed to
catch, and there was no pressure from the absent children. This was her time,
she told herself. Nearly twenty years spent satisfying others and neglectingher own pleasure. She’d start by
setting aside the circus act, the elaborate fiction, the theatrics, the drama
and the fake moaning in order to devote herself to feeling and to letting her
mouth express whatcan’t be
communicated with the body—the stuff thatescapes through one’s lips withoutthoughts
intervening.

That same weekend after dinner,
instead of watching a family movie, they locked themselves in the bedroom as if
they still lived in a crowded house. After the first few moments of work, her
husband felt something wasn’t quite right, like something had changed her. He
kepton with the familiar recipe of
kissing her here, touching her there, uttering magic words, holding off. After
several minutes of the usual intense genital stimulus, minus the colourful
results, he finally asked, “What’s wrong?” She abandoned the plan she had
devised of gathering up small details, moments of tension, and high points in hopes
of later letting herself go (like when she sometimes played with herself), because
it would be impossible that day, with the clock’s pendulum swinging back and forth,
asking her what the hell was going on. To avoid elaborate and rather slippery
explanations, she chose instead to stage yet another carnival, sparklers and
all, full of the flavours, Alka Seltzers and colours that ended up fooling him
as well. It worked every time. The next day, she tried again. But with the same
results: “What’s going on? Is it early menopause?” He wasn’t joking. “It’s just
that I can’t stop thinking about the liposuction,” she lied.

Despite the initial disconnect,
Andrea didn’t give up on the idea of resetting the path. But not because
she was more concerned with her husband than with herself; it’s that she was starting to believe that enjoying the
sexual pleasure she’d been depriving herself of could, in itself, be as
gratifying as pleasing her partner. Two weeks later and still caught in the
gentle but indecipherable waves, Andrea received an anonymous note informing
her of a mistress.

And since one bad decision
always leads to another, the wife didn’t have the slightest doubt that what she
needed to do now was restore the good that had been lost. So that same day,
with neither reproach nor her husband’s consent, Andrea drovefour stakes intothe house and stretched out the largest and most colourful big top
anyone had ever seen.

Luis Molina Lora

Luis Molina Lora
was born in Colombia. He has a B.A. in Literature from the Universidad del
Valle (Cali) and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Ottawa. He
has co-authored the novel La sucursal del cielo and co-edited the
anthologies Retrato de una nube
and Las imposturas de eros.

Trish Van Bolderen

Trish Van Bolderen
holds a B.F.A in Dance and an M.A. in Translation, and is researching
self-translation practices in Canada for her doctorate at the University of
Ottawa. She has organized events for the Literary Translators’ Association of
Canada (LTAC) and translates works from French and Spanish into English.